Data-fueled neurotargeting could kill democracy
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
Really, fMRI studies are their own form of neurotargeting, though aimed at ad buyers rather than ad consumers. Pretty colorful pictures of the brain convey the idea "Gosh, we're so smart and advanced and differentiated from those other ad agencies", even if those pretty pictures provided basically no new insights into how to sell anything.
I think people just get freaked out when they remember that the psychological processes that make up their inner life have biophysical correlates
All of the major online ad networks - Google, Facebook, etc - actually function like this, and have for the past 15 years. And it is effective to the tune of about $300B/year, looking at Google's ad revenue.
That's conflating total market with specific benefit though.
If Google ran the dumbest, most basic ad-targeting, their ad revenue would still be >0.
I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of good targeting to the online ads market. It's taken over from print/media/TV brand advertising because it's orders of magnitude more efficient. When Google was young (~2005) advertisers were reporting that they'd get 3-5x more conversions from Google at 1/10th the ad budget because the conversion rate was that much higher.
Nowadays we are able to "know automatically" and separate specific cohort of people, let's say we want something pro-rail and we have some angry users waiting for a late train, a news arrive in their aggregator narrating another train delay somewhere else caused by a landslide, another one caused by a suicide, finally an article on the terrible current years of rails due to climate change and social unrest. The angry target probably remain a bit angry, but far less than before. Similarly in a campaign against rail another news can pops up just when someone look for a possible trip/to buy a ticket, about some horror story of passengers leaving at 40+℃ for some hours due to some malfunction and bad management plus another about an accident due to little maintenance and safety checks.
Nothing new under the Sun, but the ability to get the right news/ads at the right time makes the level of effectiveness something much, much bigger than ever and the ability to target users is still in very few hands. They can't "rule the society" but being able to steer they are kind of ruler anyway.
They greatly underestimate the difficulty of the computational problems surrounding automated production of effective and highly granular propaganda at scale. Targeting is crude and coarse because that is a technical limit of off-the-shelf analytical processing platforms.
I believe that we have it but it is not some kind of context free limitless divine power. It’s constrained like all other real things.
Our free will is more like the ailerons on a plane. It can steer the plane. It cannot make the plane stop instantly or make 90 degree hard turns. It cannot stop another plane from running into you, or stop a bird strike, or rescue the plane if the wing falls off.
I think what I’m getting at is that as our technology for influencing each other advances we can never be sure exactly where we are in comparison to the strength of our own free will. At what point might we invent ways to influence each other that renders us mindless biological robots?
Of course then you get into the challenge of defining free will. Is it enough to be impossible to predict or is actual acausality required? If the latter you are into quantum mechanics or bust.
this is easily defeated by teaching everyone a sprinkle of meditation (it has been quite shocking to me the extent to which I'd have an emotional reaction -> rationalized argument -> action, even over things like, slack messages from coworkers/my manager. I used to think it was always rational thought -> action. But noticing this makes it very easy to alter the pattern)
now I want to see a response article: "Meditation will save democracy"
This reminds me of a trap that I myself am mindful to avoid, and to be gracious of when done by others - motivated reasoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
Ironically/paradoxically, a graceless or haughty (over)correction can undermine our own efforts to correct this in ourselves and especially in others, so I would agree that meditation and general mindfulness practice as well as empathy are helpful in understanding and empowering us to overcome these hurdles in interpersonal dynamics.
First impression information really sticks in people’s minds (I heard x and then you tell me y in conflict with x, I will believe x more easily). And targeting is doing this daily.
Republican voters talk more about the democrats than democrats do, democratic voters talk about republicans than democrats do. Obsession with the other is what happens in the current gridlock, and the most unproductive congress in history.
I think it’s possible that the I AM cult was the template for some of it like Qanon. Look into the tail end of that cults saga when they tried to set up a march on DC to set up their cult leader as king. Flynn and a few others have made direct references to it such as Flynn’s weird I AM inspired prayers at Q events.
As Hubbard said… want to get rich and powerful, start a religion.
Think about the last time you used someone else’s device in your family, or watch them use it… listen to the “news” they get and ask if they get different news than you. Ask why they believe what they believe, unjudgementally and with curiosity. This fact finding mission will surprise you.
It might be true certain people are less discerning than you, but I can guarantee that the small difference in discerning is not a linear effect in the distortion they see the world with.
If you consider totalitarian communism left wing then you can see analogs in Maoism and Leninism. That was a long time ago in other countries though. The US seems to have a more vibrant totalitarian cult scene on the far right today than on the left.
Centrist Republicans and independents supported Donald Trump in 2016 because Hillary Clinton was a weak candidate. They may not have agreed or liked Trump as a person, but they voted for him.
But then, as Trump said and did increasingly extreme things, they had to create a narrative that post-hoc justified their support.
And he made 'The world is out to get him. He's been treated unfairly. Everyone else is lying' easier than 'I was taken in by a con man, who turned out to be even worse than I thought.'
Which is how 'I don't like the man, but I support his policies' voters became 'Everything about Jan 6 was fine' voters.
And why I try to inculcate a 'I am not a member of any political team or identity' in myself. Politics should be about policy, not brand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard-bearer
And relatedly, to mix a metaphor, often a dog wags its tail, and it’s not unheard of the tail wagging the dog.
Another movie from that same era I enjoy is The Pentagon Wars about the development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It’s one of the better made for TV movies I can remember.
Any theory you have that treats normal American citizens as some sort of ‘other’ is just hatred that has been sold to you.
further, if you trust the glowies post-Snowden, idk what to tell you. Trump said he'd drain the swamp, and the swamp fought back and won.
unfortunately for people who do believe in the corruption of the three letter agencies, Trump's tactic of undermining democracy itself (however much we do have) in order to appease his narcissism is actually worse than the career spooks in control of the government (and much of the media narrative; the FBI Agent / CIA analyst to "political contributor" pipeline is not hidden at all, you only need pay attention to the people the major news networks call "experts" on all sorts of topics)
Definition?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_slang_terms_for_federa...
> The term was coined by computer programmer Terry A. Davis, who allegedly believed that the CIA was stalking and harassing him. "Glowie" is often used in online forums to refer to government agents, especially undercover operatives who infiltrate online extremist spaces.
> "Glow in the dark" and its derivative terms have been used to refer to various groups: newcomers that do not fit in with the culture of certain forums and are thus suspected to have bad intentions, journalists who report on extremist groups, tech companies that collect users' personal data, and others.
You require a majority to institute a policy. Practically zero people believe in policies identical to yours. The only way for you to get any of your policy preferences is to find people whose policies you can live with, and who can live with yours. You will usually disagree with them, but they're better than the people who hate most of your policies and will do exactly the opposite.
That fact would seem to make democracy barely tenable at best. It becomes entirely untenable when you can't even identify your own brand any more.
There are tens of millions of people who would say "Of course I would never vote for a felon who attempted to overthrow an election." But they will find a "but...", for reasons that are objectively irrational but completely coherent in their own heads.
I point that out because, whatever policy you want, you're going to need brand-mates. A lot of them. The more you need, the more you people you'll dislike having on your side. But it's unlikely to be beneficial to say, "Forget it, I'll take the greater of two evils."
Ideas so kooky that they could succeed?
Immediately employs Neurotargeting in the article.
I think the authors overlook a more serious turn of politics in the past 50 years: politicians have monotonically been hoarding powers in the name of safety , technocracy or simply "trust us bro". This leaves the voting population unaccountable for their own choices, since none of their bad choices was allowed to affect them negatively. This made people vote increasingly with Pathos, aware that there will be no real consequences, or they will become a burden for the next generation.
Isn’t this the same as it ever was? In this view, voters deserve what they get, yet are unlikely to get what they deserve, but should we will it different? Ought not a tyranny of the majority set the stage a for tragedy of the commons?
This seems like "neurotargeting" could be a danger to a very specific conception of democracy, but not a danger to democracy in the way that people, in my experience, generally use the word. And certainly not a danger to democracy in the way that people such as Edward Bernays would have thought about it.
For complete clarity, the way I've generally heard people use the word "democracy" is (roughly) regarding a system of governance where the will of the people is used to decide legitimacy, either by voting directly on laws or by voting on representatives to govern for them.
It's not automatically clear that changing the will of the people is actually a danger to that system or makes it any less legitimate (assuming the will of the people itself is what you value). And it seems weird that this would be a danger.
Is this just a different definition of democracy (possibly a regional variation?), or is it actually being used in a non-standard way here, because it seems like this would be a much bigger threat to liberalism than democracy (is democracy a short-hand for liberalism in some circles?).
You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back.
The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help.
But you’re not helping. Why is that?
Actually, this sounds instead of the best way to understand the subject, the best way to get a very narrow and biased view and fear mongering view. Basically, this is someone whose whole career is dependent on convincing people that there is a problem whether or not there is.
Democracy hasn’t functioned as it was “intended” for, well, ever. It was never alive to be killed, which makes this useless handwringing.
And similarly, how the taken-for-granted poor rural and evangelical vote upended the Republican party in the primaries.
Political parties ignore blocks of constituents at their peril -- and that's always been the strength of democracy.
Nope. Hillary Clinton was specifically calling out the racists and bigots within the Trump camp, not all Trump supporters. Which is obvious to anyone who bothers to read the actual quote. It isn't complex or nuanced, or even that long.
And I don't know why Trump supporters still insist on believing otherwise, since one would expect that they would want to distance themselves from the bad elements within their party. I can only assume they find solidarity with such elements to be more important than conceding that a Democrat might actually have a point.
Ah well. You sleep with the pigs, you wake up smelling like shit.
As I recall, she was actually pretty specific in who she called deplorable, and it was an apt description. "They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic". Saying that was half of Trump supporters was hyperbolic and perhaps inaccurate, but MAGA world adopted 'deplorable' as a badge of honor of their own free will.
Do you think they indeed self-identify as racist, sexist, homophobic, or Islamaphobic? I can only speak for the people I know personally, but that label does seem to fit. When you think you are being oppressed by "the alphabet mafia" you may want to take a step back.
Sounds like we're in agreement that this was a strategic misstep.
scissor sentences, you say.
No acknowledgement whatsoever of poor people. Clearly this is a trash article.
They claim it’s democracy when elected officials vote on bills that are largely against the interests and desires of even the people that elected those voting representatives.
I think we can recover though.
What we need to do is extend the powers of our justice by jury system.
Bills in congress should be voted on by a panel of jurors conducted by a judge.
The elected officials are there to litigate either for or against, but it is the jury’s ultimate decision.
I rarely think I have anything to offer the word of civics as it seems to me to be motivated in ways antithetical to my own desires in governance, but I truly think this is an idea that will have a very positive effect on the current failures of the American system of democracy.
Upper house has 4 year terms with term limits (say, 20 years max) and has professional politicians.
Lower house is elected for 4 year terms by lottery, a portion turning over every year, in the same way as jury duty. Then support them with a strong research civil service (e.g. the CBO).
But how do term limits solve the misinformation and cult of personality that is currently plaguing contemporary American democracy?
The interesting part, for me, of the introduction of juries in bill voting is having to plead the case to the jury rather than their ephemeral status.
This would immediately remove all of the “carve out diplomacy” that is currently used to get bills passed.
Politicians lie by a matter of course, courts have consequences and checks and balances for lies; imperfect, but at least they are there.
That's why their primary use in the US (trials) offloads all the specialty requirements onto other parties (adversarial prosecution and defense teams, judges, court staff).
Consequently, in using juries you gain some measure of protection from corruption and responsiveness.
But you lose expert knowledge.
How would that work in your system?
> The thing is, congress members are rarely experts themselves, but the court system actively encourages expert witness testimony.
You said “lose” but I would argue it’s a “gain” as far as expertise is concerned.
And the problem with expert witness testimony is that it needs to be validated.
If you know nothing about a topic, and I and someone with an opposite viewpoint both put experts in from of you that support our positions, how do you decide?
Better funding and expanding a non-partisan, Library of Congress type resource seems like a better approach to me.
How indeed. How, for instance, would a congress member? What about staffers make them better experts than expert witnesses in a trial? Who are these expert staffers accountable to?
I feel you are being a little unbalanced in your criticism.
I'm all for better "resources", but fail to see how that could be held up as an "either or" replacement for my proposal.
Also, I am confused how it would remedy the ills I am addressing with the proposal. There's a meme online to the effect ~"remember when before the internet we used to think hate was result of lack of access to information".
Your representative will still have their staff and likely even their token experts, but it will still be on them to plead the case to a jury.
I feel those of us with interest in conjuring math in stone with electricity tend toward thinking there is the binary of right and wrong. That, "if only we had more data everyone would agree", but humans and human societies are much more complex and often an argument can be made for both sides of an debate regardless of how sure I am of my side of it.
The point is how do you ensure the argument with better evidence is the one we use to determine policy.
While only using existing tools from our current system I would argue the best way we have is trial by jury.
Not that I think they system as it is is great, but I'm not sure this helps / doesn't have its own significant failure modes.
I welcome court and jury selection reform.
I am just also advocating for extending where those powers are used.
Untrue, an expert can be a juror but I know what you are trying to say.
The thing is, congress members are rarely experts themselves, but the court system actively encourages expert witness testimony.